Happy Memories
by lella7
Summary: After many long years in Azkaban, Bellatrix suddenly remembers what it is to be happy. Second place in MadHatterBellatrix10's Bellamort Fic Competition on the HPFC forum.


**A/N- ****Written for MadHatterBellatrix10's Bellamort Fic Competition on the HPFC forum. Reviews are love :)**

Happy Memories

Bellatrix stared blankly at the vivid red of the brand on her left forearm. It was clearer than it had been for years and years and years and... she didn't know how many years, but the mark felt like a relic from a past life.

The Dark Lord was coming back. She had known that he would, and sometimes when she thought of it, an unfamiliar feeling coursed through her; a feeling that belonged to that past life. It did not last long. At a single, rasping breath from the Dementors which swarmed in front of her cell day and night, not that there seemed to be any difference between the two; the feeling would be torn from her, leaving only emptiness in its wake. Long ago she had fought to keep hold of whatever that feeling was, but she had grown too tired and weak to fight and resigned herself to the Dementors' power.

Now her only form of resistance was her constant mantra which streamed never endingly through her mind. _The Dark Lord will return. My master will save me and reward my loyalty._ The words had once sounded hopeful, but Bellatrix had forgotten what hope felt like, and now they were lifeless and cold. Yet she still clung to them.

She knew that there were happy memories there somewhere. She couldn't quite remember what happy was, but she knew it existed, or it had existed once. Sometimes her mind would approach one of those long forgotten happy memories and then it would fade as soon as it began, plunging her back into the monotonous, black despair that was the world she now lived in.

All she could remember of her master now were the things that sent stabbing pains through her drained body.

_Her heart dropped as the mudblood she had been sent to capture disapparated before she could reach him. She had screwed up and she knew it. Her stomach twisted with guilt and she almost considered running away, but of course she could never bring herself to do that. She must face the consequences._

Bellatrix began to shake as the stream of painful memories became more and more vivid.

_He glared at her with cold, unadulterated, unforgiving fury. And that hurt far more than his curses._

She closed her eyes as if that would stop her from seeing such terrible things, but it only intensified them.

_She stared at the blank flesh where just seconds ago the Dark Mark had been and began to tremble at the painful, painful realisation that the Dark Lord had fallen._

She clutched her thin arms around her, tearing at her grey prison robes, wishing the pain would stop.

Then the Dark Mark burned black and suddenly there was more pain, but this was different. This pain felt good. It made her feel alive, sending fire coursing through her veins which had seemed full of lead and bringing back in floods emotions she had forgotten existed and yet were so very familiar to her.

_With a smile of satisfaction he tore back her sleeve and aimed his wand at her forearm, burning his mark into her flesh, making her _his.

She jumped up, ignoring the trembling of her weak limbs and revelling in the memories that were so important to her, she could hardly believe they had lain forgotten for so long.

_He cupped her jaw with his long fingers and pressed his lips to hers as she melted against him._

She felt giddy with delirious glee and began to laugh. Her throat ached and her voice cracked, it had not been used for so long, but she did not care.

"_You have shown me great loyalty," he said slowly, coldly, tangling his fingers roughly into her soft black hair, "and you shall be rewarded."_

Bellatrix's trembling hands fought their way into the matted mess of her hair, seizing it like her master had and her cackling increased in pitch as she danced across her tiny cell. She could feel the pull of the Dementors' breath, but that only made her laugh harder, because their efforts were in vain. Her hysteria was too strong for them.

Manic laughter echoed through the silent cells of those who had too felt the Dark Mark but had forgotten too much of their past lives to hope.


End file.
